


"Lay me down on a bed of roses"

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (technically character death for a hot second), Angst, F/F, Happy Ending, mistaken for dead, season 3 setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: Supercat quote prompt from @caycep: “What do you mean, you’re alive?! Do you know how much paperwork I had to sign saying you were dead?”“Well, I was at the time.”Happy holidays, and I hope you enjoy!!
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant
Comments: 17
Kudos: 448
Collections: Super Santa Femslash 2019





	"Lay me down on a bed of roses"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caycep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caycep/gifts).



> Title borrowed from "If I Die Young"

For someone who had never registered herself under the Alien Amnesty Act or in any way documented her existence on the planet Earth through formal, legal channels, there still managed to be layers upon layers of bureaucratic bullshit and mountains of paperwork to be dealt with in the fallout from Supergirl’s death.

Cat Grant was fairly certain there were other people who should be doing some of this work, but as the person who needed to announce the news to the world from behind a White House-issued podium that was, blessedly, large enough to hide her white-knuckled grip, she’d found herself steadily making her way through the forms. It was good. Numbing. It almost let her pretend the little string of numbers—date, time of death, GPS coordinates for the exact intersection in National City where a red-and-blue-spandex-clad body had gone slamming into the ground without ever rising back up—were meaningless. But then she’d do something careless, like stare long enough to notice that the 4 kind of looked like Supergirl’s body in profile, cape billowing out behind her, and that wouldn’t do. So she’d swallow down the emotions that threatened to bubble up and move on to the next line of the form.

Within a matter of days, Cat was fairly certain she had become the country’s foremost civilian expert on the alien threat known as Reign. She would have been the foremost expert full stop if the DEO didn’t stonewall her so completely that even having the President’s ear meant nothing. Sometimes she could let herself believe that she was memorizing a story. Lines from a scary bedtime story meant to ensure that baby superheroes stayed safe and didn’t stray too far from their parents. Nothing from real life. Because everyone knew that Supergirl didn’t die. She got back up. Lived to fly another day. She couldn’t—Cat shook her head. She would not cry at work. If she happened to have started sleeping at work, well, the rule still applied.

Cat’s therapist thought she wasn’t dealing well with Supergirl’s death.

Cat couldn’t tell the woman that some small part of her refused to believe that Supergirl was dead, and if Supergirl wasn’t dead, there was really no reason to grieve.

She didn’t think that would make her therapist think any better of her.

Exactly 10 days after Supergirl died, Cat found herself back in her apartment with a long weekend off from work—mandated by Olivia herself, who’d given Cat a look that held too much sympathy for Cat to bear. With a miserable Carter off with his father for the last few days of his school’s winter holiday, there were no witnesses to her bad decisions.

She waited until the bourbon had helped soften the edges of the world before taking out her phone and scrolling back in her messages to the last time she’d heard from Kara. It was a trivial little nothing, sent three days before…before. “There’s a new barista at Noonan’s fresh in from NYC who makes lattes at Cat Grant-approved temperatures – you’ll have to ask for Krista next time you’re in town :)” Certainly not the last words of National City’s hero. Of Cat’s hero.

Dread already roiling her stomach, Cat opened her internet browser and typed in, “Kara Danvers.” It took her several minutes and a long sip of bourbon to be able to add, “obituary.”

A choking sob of relief practically clawed its way out of her throat when the only results to pop up were the handful of obituaries Kara had written back when Snapper was still pretending he didn’t recognize the promise glimmering just beneath the surface.

Other variations of the search continued to yield no results that would confirm Cat’s nightmare had somehow come true.

And that was that.

If Kara wasn’t dead, Supergirl wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. It didn’t matter that Supergirl had been bloody, bruised, and battered in a way Cat had never seen before. It didn’t matter that Cat had watched the footage of Supergirl’s body falling from the sky and crashing through the pavement, leaving a crater in its wake. It didn’t matter that dozens of black ops DEO troops armed to the teeth had stolen into the night with Supergirl’s body. None of that mattered because Kara Danvers wasn’t dead.

It was abundantly clear who had her. All that remained was finding out how to get Kara back from them. Finding out why it was that they were letting the world believe she was dead when she wasn’t—couldn’t be.

The bourbon made it abundantly clear to Cat that the best plan would be calling Kara’s cellphone.

It rang and rang and rang.

Well, at least someone was keeping it charged.

“Hi, you’ve reached Kara Danvers!” Cat could just hear the exclamation point in her voice. “I’m not here right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a super day!”

“Kara.” Cat’s voice was hoarse, and she moved away from the mouthpiece to clear her throat. “Kara Danvers, pick up this phone. You cannot—you are not dead, and I need you to pick up.” She hung up before her voice could crack. Kara was alive, and she would hear these messages, and it simply wouldn’t do to have a record of Cat Grant sobbing over a certain former assistant who sent her messages about Noonan’s baristas and dinosaur fun facts (to be passed on to Carter) and photos of hideous poly-blend cardigans with captions like, “50% off, better stock up! Do you want one? I imagine the White House gets chilly…”

Cat was much more brusque on her second call later that night. “Kiera, it isn’t amusing, this little…stunt of yours. Call me back.”

The third veered dangerously into pleading territory. But Cat couldn’t be blamed, not after the hour she’d spent poring over encrypted emails sent from private accounts filled with emotions too large for text messages. The hints about what might be when Cat returned from her sabbatical. The suggestions of feelings left unvoiced for too long. The unspoken promises of a more that would finally shift things into place the way they belonged. “Kara, it’s okay if you’re—if only Kara is able to return. Kara Danvers is enough. You’ve always been enough. Enough for m—” She hung up before she could say something too direct—something they might both regret later. When Cat was sober and Kara awake.

The fourth call was made in the gray light of morning, a cup of coffee on the counter in front of Cat and pain pulsing behind her temples. “Alexandra Danvers,” Cat practically growled into the phone. “I know there is something happening beyond what the news is reporting. You’re too smart to let half of a job be left undone. And if you don’t want a certain three-lettered top-secret organization to have its identity smeared across the front pages of every newspaper from here to Hong Kong, I suggest you pick up your phone and call me. Now.”

All things considered, the knock at Cat’s door four hours later shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It was why she’d gotten herself dressed in her best battle armor—at least for the way she did battle—and had a small bag packed and ready to go.

Still, she wasn’t quite prepared for the way Alex Danvers charged into her apartment, rage practically etched into her face, every muscle drawn tight, like she hadn’t unclenched a single one in, oh, say, 10 or 11 days.

“Do you understand how stupid, how incredibly fucking stupid, it is to threaten a government agency?” she growled.

Cat pursed her lips, jutting her chin out as she leveled the agent with a glare known to reduce grown men to tears.

Alex’s own glare became, if possible, even angrier.

“She’s hurt,” Cat said, voice cool and even.

“Hurt?” The very word was lanced with pain, and Cat felt something inside of her shrivel at the look in Alex’s eyes. “That’s not what you announced to the world, is it? I think we all heard what you said about Supergirl.”

Cat swallowed heavily, but she couldn’t—no, this wasn’t someone in mourning. This was someone on the edge. This was someone who had glimpsed that level of loss but hadn’t yet suffered it. “Then what about _Kara_?”

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, taking a deep inhale before turning back to Cat again. “The equivalent of a medically induced coma.”

Goosebumps broke out all along Cat’s body, but she refused to shudder. “That isn’t dead.”

“Cat,” Alex sighed. “Stop. Just—just stop with the act. Stop trying to outsmart everyone in the room to run away from whatever you’re feeling. It’s not helping her. It’s not helping me or the rest of the people desperately trying to get her back, okay?”

Cat readied herself for a fight, but then Alex was turning on her heel and heading towards the door, and that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

“Wait!”

“What?” Alex hadn’t turned around, but she’d paused.

“I need to see her.”

Shoulders straightened, neck rolling up from the half-defeated slump. “The White House will get an update if and when it becomes necessary, Ms. Grant.”

“This isn’t the Press Secretary asking to see Supergirl. This is me…asking to see Kara.”

“She won’t—you won’t recognize her, not like this.”

Cat’s heart clenched, but she wouldn’t back down, not when she was this close. “It doesn’t matter.”

“There will be no writing about this.”

“The White House isn’t in the business of selling newspapers.”

“Cat.” As if the clear warning in her tone wasn’t enough, Alex’s fingers curled around the weapon holstered by her hip.

“Has the world learned of Supergirl’s secret identity? Has CatCo news released that front page story?” Cat challenged.

After a moment, Alex’s hand dropped back down to her side. “Fine. Just know this isn’t Air Force One waiting for you.”

That was an understatement, and Cat, who prided herself on the toughness few expected from her, stumbled off the helicopter when they landed, her skin tinged a pale shade of green and head still reeling.

Still, it would be worth it.

\---

It wasn’t the scene Cat had pictured. When Alex said Cat wouldn’t recognize Kara, she had braced herself for the sight of skin marred with still-healing cuts and bruises. She didn’t think it would be because Kara’s whole body was encased in some kind of tube that looked like it came out of a bad sci-fi movie. No one would tell her what it did or where it was from, and Cat made a mental note to ask Kara when she woke up. When, not if. Cat had practically taken the head off the doctor she overheard talking in the conditional tense, as if Kara’s walking out of there one day wasn’t an inevitability.

Still, when no one was around, Cat placed a hand that only shook slightly on top of the tube and whispered all those things she’d never been brave enough to say aloud, reminding Kara that she had to wake up to hear them for herself, had to wake up because there was still so much life in front of her, so many things she had yet to experience.

But nothing happened.

\---

After two full days of more nothingness, Cat flew back to DC.

Her therapist praised her for finally showing some emotion over everything.

Carter grew clingier than he had been since his days as a toddler and switched off the news whenever the conversation turned to Supergirl.

Olivia squeezed Cat’s hand at the end of a meeting and offered her any leave time she might want to take.

But the rest of the world began moving on. Slowly, yes, but little by little Cat watched them forgetting Supergirl. People who were only alive because of how many times she’d put her body—her fragile, ultimately breakable body—on the line. And Cat hated them for it. Hated the way they grieved and forgot. Hated that she had more reason to hope than any of them but could barely handle facing the world each day.

\---

Seventeen days after Agent Danvers swept into her apartment in a whirlwind of pain and fury, Cat’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“We’re going to try to wake her up. Br—someone here thinks it would be good for people Kara knows and trusts to be available.”

Cat’s heart thudded too fast in her chest. “Oh. That’s—that’s good, right?”

She could hear the hesitation in Alex’s answer. “We hope. It isn’t technology that—we’re doing what we can with what we know.”

Cat’s hands felt clammy, and she just barely resisted the urge to wipe them on her skirt. “Okay.”

“What? No threats of exposure over that?”

“What do you want me to say?” Cat snapped.

“Say that you’ll be ready to leave in ten minutes when the chopper shows up.”

“I—” Cat pulled up short, angry retorts still burning at the back of her throat. “Fine.”

\---

Being there turned out to mean a whole lot of waiting around. No one would tell her how exactly they were waking Kara up or why it needed to happen then, and the only people to visit Cat in the dingy waiting room that had clearly never held a willing human occupant were Alex, who visited all of once to tell her she’d be back when she had news, and a small, short-haired woman who went by Vasquez and handed Cat a cup of the worst coffee she’d ever had in her life.

But eventually Alex came out, her skin pale and the bags under her eye dark and pronounced, but smiling broadly. “She’s awake.” Her voice caught and tripped over the words, like they were still new, like she was just trying them out, getting used to the hope that suffused them. “She’s—we’re trying not to overwhelm her, but she was happy to see me, and I think—I think she’ll want to see you too.”

Cat practically sprang out of her chair.

“Just a few more minutes. They’re letting her get settled in the sunbeds first.”

“Sunbeds?”

Alex sighed. “The worst of her injuries have healed, but she’s not quite at full capacity yet. These will expedite the process.”

“But she’s okay?”

“Yeah, it looks like it.” Alex gave a hiccupping little sob as the corners of her mouth pulled up into a smile.

And there, in that dingy little room with its cell-like walls, Cat and Alex shared one quiet, perfect moment.

\---

Somehow Cat hadn’t expected the way all the breath in her lungs would feel like it was being forcibly expelled at the sight of Kara, curled up on a standard hospital cot, looking smaller than she ever had under the bright glow of artificial sunlight.

“Kara,” Cat managed, her voice sounding strangled.

“Cat?” Kara blinked several times, even going so far as to rub her eyes, as if the sight of someone she’d once seen every day was such a shock. “You’re…here? Why are _you_ here?”

The words hit Cat like a physical blow, and she nearly staggered under the weight of everything they seemed to contain. The accusations—you left; you don’t come back. The pointed confusion—of all the people in my life, why are you the one I’m seeing?

Kara’s movements were sluggish, but her gaze was as keen as ever, eyes tracking the subtlest shifts in Cat’s expression. “No, I didn’t mean—”

But it was too late. Cat could feel her spine stiffening as she gave a little sniff. “I’m here because apparently you’re alive. Completely alive.” Well that would show her therapist. No need to grieve someone who’d been living all along. “Do you even know the amount of paperwork one has to fill out to register the death of a superhero?”

Cat’s eyes followed the bob of Kara’s throat as she swallowed. “I mean, well, I was dead. At the time.”

Cat just barely managed to grab a chair handle before collapsing ungracefully into it. “What?” Alex had most certainly not said that. “No, you’ve been—you were injured, yes, but you were—this was—they chose to induce a coma for you to heal better in that tube.”

But Kara shook her head. “That…thing, whatever it is—that was a miracle, Cat. I wasn’t supposed to—I shouldn’t be alive again.”

“Again.” The word was little more than a gasp. The stutter of breath over the thought that there had been a time—minutes? seconds? hours?—where the world went on turning without Kara living in it.

Cat’s hands were on Kara’s before she’d quite processed what was happening. Her skin was dry and cooler than usual, but her fingers moved against Cat’s. Then there was the pulse, the steady thump of a heart beating, proof that this woman—this wonderful, beautiful woman who’d nearly died—no, had died—was still here, here again.

A trembling hand swept across Kara’s forehead, smoothing her hair back before trailing lightly—so lightly—down the side of her face. A thumb swept across her cheekbone. Fingertips trailed along her jaw.

“Cat.” Kara’s voice was still hoarse, but stronger this time, with weight behind it. “I’m okay. Supergirl can make a statement in a few more days, okay? No more paperwork.” She managed a little smile, her tone forcibly light.

“Supergirl isn’t the point!”

A crinkle furrowed Kara’s brow. “Then wha—”

“You _died_.”

“But I’m back.”

“Apparently only just!”

“It’s okay, Cat.”

“It is not okay. It is so far from okay. How could you—how could you leave before I’d gotten to make that visit back to National City you kept suggesting? How could you leave before you’d flown out for that tour of the West Wing you kept hinting would make an excellent birthday present? How could you leave before we…before I could… We didn’t even have a chance.”

Kara’s hands curled around Cat’s, pulling them up to her chest. “Well that gave me something to fight for, didn’t it? I had to come back for you. For this.” She looked up at Cat, eyes locking onto hers. “For a chance at us.” 

But Cat wasn’t ready to have things be so neat and tidy. “You don’t have to say that. You have expressed more than a little uncertainty about whe—”

“Oh shut up.” But before Cat could comment on how brazen death had made Kara, Kara’s lips—dry and cracked and perfect—were pressing against her own. It only lasted a moment before Kara dropped back down to the bed, looking as exhausted as Cat had ever seen her. “I never doubted my feelings, Cat. Only whether I was just fooling myself into thinking they were reciprocated.”

“Oh. Well, I”—Cat took a deep breath in, fingers stroking across the back of Kara’s hand—“I should hope that there are no more doubts.”

Kara beamed up at her, and after 28 days of _wrong_ , the world righted itself once more. “No more.” Her smile turned playful. “But maybe just to be sure…” She tugged meaningfully at Cat’s hands and let out a soft sigh of contentment as Cat picked up on the less-than-subtle hint and leaned in. The kiss was achingly gentle, and Cat’s touch was featherlight as she cradled Kara’s jaw, but it was everything she needed.

And there were so many things still to be worked out. So many questions Cat wanted answered. So many things they both needed to tell each other—face-to-face this time, without all the safe distance their texts and emails had provided. But for now, it could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter and Tumblr @sapphicscholar


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